


the broken hearts club.

by pinkgrapefruit



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst, F/F, new york city is it's own character, photographer! vanessa, written by a brit who has no understanding of NYC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 19:37:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21202970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkgrapefruit/pseuds/pinkgrapefruit
Summary: She rolls the ring between her fingers and wonders how it became the end of them when it should have been the beginning.





	the broken hearts club.

**Author's Note:**

> for everyone who wanted more from me,
> 
> i'm very busy have some angst

  
  


_ I need emotion, Novocaine, I need a numbing of my brain _

_ I need somethin' to take away the remains of your name _

She rolls the ring between her fingers and wonders how it became the end of them when it should have been the beginning. The silver shines bright like it’s never been worn, no signs of wear and tear, no hint of tarnishing. It glows in a way that tells you it’s wearer has no tan line. Her’s is a solid strip of white. When her tears fall onto the diamond, she’s sure it cracks. Her heart does. Vanessa’s heart cracks every time.

And the way her blood rushes through the jagged-cut veins that sparkle rough like a diamond on a full moon sends a pounding to her head. Like a basketball on a concrete floor and the noise it makes could be footfalls or it could be breaking. In her defence, the world moves in slow motion now and she’s not sure if it’s moving at all. She’s numb from the brain down and it takes more time to fasten up her shoes than it does to remember her birthday but that’s how life is and sometimes you’ve got to pick your battles. She decides she doesn’t need groceries and instead purges their group calendar. 

She tries to purge the group calendar just like she tries to cancel their wedding planner and she tries to send an email out to the invitees and remove the taster wedding cakes from their fridge and stop calling her flat  _ theirs _ . She tries. 

_ I need amnesia for a day and an umbrella for the rain _

_ That hasn't gone away since you said you didn't need me _

The first morning Vanessa feels up for a run, it’s raining and she curses fucking Brooke for this fucking rain because of course, the ice queen loved the rain. It rained the day she left and she’s damn sure it will always be raining when she thinks of her. Instead of a run, she takes the A train from Brooklyn to Central Park, desperate to find one piece of New York that isn’t tainted with memories of Blonde hair and the smell of lavender. Somehow they never ended up here so Vanessa spends her day sitting on a bench with an umbrella and a large coffee. Her sweater is pulled up over her chin and her sleeves, over most of her hands and she feels safer than she has in weeks.

When she gets home, she opens a bottle of wine and eats all the cake in the flat and calls it a success.

_ Lately been thinkin' maybe _

_ There's a place we won't feel so crazy _

She deeps cleans the apartment after three and a half weeks. She is beyond desperate to remove the smell of Peonies and Hairspray that seems to have permeated her entire being, leaving her feeling surrounded and smothered. She vacuums behind the TV and washes the sofa cushions and cleans out all the cabinets. She puts all of her developed films of Brooke into an airtight box and takes it to her storage unit the next day along with two boxes of assorted knick-knacks and a suit that somehow ended up on her side of the closet. She sleeps easy that night, calmed by the frantic day and the scent of vanilla incense. She doesn’t dream. It’s a welcome change.

She converts Brooke’s side of the spare room into a proper darkroom, pinning up blackout curtains and carrying her big bath from college through the subway. She settles it in a corner and spends the next two days developing all the shots she’s been too preoccupied to do until the entire flat is dark and covered in tarp and she has to duck to make it from her bedroom to the kitchen. She drinks her coffee sat up on the counter and hears Brooke telling her to get down but she ignores the voice. The day is a win.

_ Been in a hazy mid-morning daydream _

_ I found a shady spot that they saved me _

She buys too much the first time she grocery shops for one and has to invite the Dreamgirls over to help eat it all. The next day she calls Yvie and she brings Scarlet over and they;re both still friends with Brooke and look uncomfortable the whole time until Vanessa tells them she won’t break if she hears her name or talks about weddings and they can finally tell about hoe Scarlet’s job photographing the Ballet Company is or how their wedding planning is going. She imparts the wisdom that an off-white dress will work better with Yvie’s skin tone and a blush tone will look warmer against Scarlet’s hair and that the lighting looks best cosy and that the flowers should be bought in bulk. She lets them know she’s just a phone call away and it almost feels like therapy except when they leave she feels crushingly alone.

She takes a bath with some muscle relaxer she found under the sink, a gift from one of Brooke’s dancer friends and sends thanks to the gods that New York garners enough money to pay their dancers well, feeling rich from the softness of her skin.

_ They said, "come be the newest member of the broken hearts club _

_ We hate every little thing about the people that we love _

She hates the way almond milk tastes, and how she will never be able to watch the nutcracker again and the way black and white films make your head hurt a little if you watch them for too long. She hates how the sheets are always cold and the bed is never made and how Brooke used to do it all but there’s no Brooke anymore so she’s going to have to learn how to fold a fitted sheet all on her own. She hates how she still find white cat hairs on her black clothes and black cat hairs on her white clothes and blonde hair in her shower drain two months later when it gets blocked. 

She hates how her Spotify still recommends her opera and how Netflix remembers Brooke’s love of true crime, even though some of the thumbnails scare the shit out of Vanessa. She hates how she booked the time off work to plan wedding stuff and somehow the entire freelance photography world seems to know because even though Vanessa is well known and well regarded, she cannot seem to get a gig anywhere and can’t even resort to weddings because she’s too scared she’ll end up crying into her camera.

She hates how she feels when she passes the subway stop for the New York Ballet and how she feels when she sees a blonde updo in a crowd and she hates how she feels.

And she hates that she still loves her. 

She hates it.

_ We're the let-down, we're the lied-to, where the lost go and it finds you _

_ Where the lonely make the lonely feel less lonely, and we're dyin' to _

_ Invite you to stay, and take away the pain _

_ 'Cause misery loves company, so hey, what do you say?" _

She manages to feel lost in her own home sometimes and it’s an eerie feeling that only changes over time as she allows her space to open up and become shared again. She buys a cactus in the first step towards healing and talks to it intermittently. Soon she has an apiary on her fire escape, filled with potted plants and fairy lights and it’s a little escape from how claustrophobic the flat can feel. 

She joins a running club and rediscovers the routes she and Brooke would run in the days when they were still fresh and young and felt like exploring. She still can’t touch their regular routes but she likes the older ones. She gets a coffee at their spot and the barista is new so they don’t look at her with a familiar face of pity. She starts to get bookings again, people coming to New York wanting a travel photographer to follow their adventures, young influencers wanting to feel like real celebrities and she gets paid more to take photos of some than she used to in entire years. 

She knows she could move but she is tied to her place with heartstrings.

_ And at first, I wasn't sure if there's even a cure _

_ For what I'm feelin', 'cause what I'm feeling's been feelin' more and more absurd _

Her therapist emails her on a Tuesday, suggests it’s been a while and she should come in for a chat. She blindly agrees and puts on her comfiest Yoga pants, knowing it’s going to be a long day. He suggests she should go see a show, watch her dance and make peace with the way her body moves and the way her mind has moved on and she blindly agrees to that too, too overwhelmed by the suggestion to really think. Her homework is to book it and she is scheduled in for the day after the performance.

She books the performance of Giselle with little thought, picking the best seats in the house like she always did. They are front and centre in an area usually reserved for friends and family but it must be a little thin on the ground that night because she can snag her familiar chair with ease. The amount it takes from her bank account should hurt but she’s realising more and more that maybe this is healing. 

She buys a new dress for the occasion and sets it aside, knowing it will be the only thing untouched by Brooke. It’s a powerful feeling. 

_ The repeating in my head of every last word that you said _

_ Feels like ever since you left, you still won't leave me _

It’s a beautiful show and Brooke dances like she’s moving on air. She glides, ever jete a flying move. Her partnering is divine and for the first time, Vanessa isn’t jealous of the man that gets to hold her. It doesn’t feel like a victory when he lets go. 

She feels every move Brooke makes, wants to say that the blue eyes are piercing into her but it isn’t true. Because Brooke dances for the back row, eyes cast far back and Vanessa is allowed the moment to fade away. She comes out of it feeling refreshed and free and skips down the steps lightly.

Her therapist tells her he’s proud and she feels it deep in her soul like a new fire. She hopes it will stay lit.

_ I guess if you can't beat 'em, join 'em _

_ That's what they always say _

_ Let's go inside, let's coincide _

_ And I'll commensurate _

She lays in bed on a Wednesday morning and lets herself remember that night. She thinks about the way it felt to open the door to an empty foyer, to feel uprooted and upended, life on its back legs rearing blindly as she tried to hold on for dear life. She remembers it like one remembers their parent’s divorce, messily and full os blame and she hopes that Brooke will never do it to another person because at that moment she felt so lost. 

She grounds herself, hands twisted in her duvet, head heavy on the pillow. 

She gets up, makes a coffee and waters her plants. 

She starts afresh.

_ Singin', we're the newest members of the broken hearts club _

_ We still feel pretty lonely and we wish we didn't, but _

She stands on her fire escape at 4 am on a Thursday. Camera in hand she watches the world pass by as the sun rises, a golden glow reflecting off the highrises of the city she loves so dearly. Below her, on the street, she misses the flash of Blonde that jogs as the night fades. The shots she takes that morning sell for thousands. She calls then ‘Brooke Lynn’.

_ We're the newest members of the broken hearts club _

_ And we all kinda hate it, but it's easier than love _

**Author's Note:**

> who let me take physics, maths and chemistry it's like i have a death wish.


End file.
